Google Maps Adds Oblique Aerial Imagery

The one big advantage that I always felt Bing Maps had over Google Maps was the inclusion of its Bird’s Eye View oblique imagery. Looks like that advantage is going away as Google Maps has finally added oblique aerial imagery. For now the imagery is only available for San Jose and San Diego, but you can expect that to be built out further in the coming months.

Don’t you think this

Oblique View of Petco Park

is better than this?

Satellite View of Petco

Also note the addition of a compass ring on GLargeMapControl3D that enables users to rotate the imagery from different directions.

Adding an oblique perspective to your Google Maps application is really very simple as you can see from the code example below. Simply use one of the existing map types that support aerial perspective imagery (G_SATELLITE_MAP or G_HYBRID_MAP) and call GMap2.enableRotation(). Obviously you would also need to be zoomed into an area that currently support oblique imagery as well.